(MAYBE VAGUELY INTERESTING TO PEOPLE WHO THINK THE EDGES OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY ARE PART OF SOME CAPITALIST COMEDY) or, ONE BLOGGER, 10,000 PUBLICISTS AND A SHITLOAD OF SPECIOUS RHETORIC

3/19/2005

Everybody having good fun? Everybody partying?

So, going to see a couple of bands tonight that I've been mildly interested in seeing, although it's also work. +1'd, I called up a friend, who I've been lately (scattered-ly) showering with such extra door prizes, to go along. Although I'm now concerned that sustained bites to the hand the feeds free ticket are going to be in order.

(Recent complaint-riddled evenings with this person have accompanied live sets by Futureheads, The Album Leaf, and, of course, Frankie Chan/Kid Millionaire/Club Cobrasnake, the last of which, I'll allow, is a bit of an acquired taste.)

Now listening to one of these bands I'll be seeing tonight, I'm a little concerned about how this dude, who has a very decent knowledge of post-punk, will be bitching. We share an increasinglysmalloverlappingspace in our respective musical tastes. While he at various points in our relationship has turned me on to The Wedding Present, A Certain Ratio, Moonshake, Bailter Space--all bands now seemingly forever on my sub-regular playlist--he has for years completely ignored my song of praise attached to the likes of The Kinks, Parliament, Minutemen, Mirah. And hip-hop is totally out of the question for this guy, as he categorically dismisses everything from Tribe Called Quest to Nas to Busdriver, so much so that I'm not even going to mention, say, Lady Sovereign. I mean, really! I think I slipped one under his guard when we saw Bloc Party last year, but he refuses to see any merit in the music of TV On the Radio. Hit or miss, at best.

Suffice it to say that I think the cards are stacked against me tonight. My question(s) being: How do people with very common experiences with music come to eventually have such different musical tastes? And how do you keep the act of going out to see bands fun, particularly if you're going with folks who know a lot about music, are very opinionated and are not shy about critically voicing that opinion to the disparagment of bands you like?

*(And btw, that photo up there was taken by Jessica Miller, a very fine photographer who-- although I haven't worked with her as such--I've dealt with, and I can't imagine she's used to being silent about people using her images without giving proper credit.)

1 Comments:

I've gotten used to my friends varying from feeling indifferent to outwardly hating just about every band I like. You figure out that you're probably not going to change their minds and then you decide to invite them to shows where you can both have a good time, go alone, or suck it up and deal. Or just find a new set of band seeing friends.